Leveling Builds

Shadow tree considered fastest leveling build

It is common knowledge that the fastest, cheapest, most worry free way to level a priest to 70 is to have the little neighbor girl do it while you read the complete works of Hermann Hesse in another room. But on the off chance that you've lost your copy of Steppenwolf or that Sally is away for the week at Blizzcon, then the shadow tree is widely considered the fastest solo method for leveling a priest in PvE. Discipline and Holy have extremely useful applications in PvP, Arena, and Raid environments, of course, but the high DPS and safety of a Shadow build makes it the most popular choice for general leveling.

a full 13/0/58 with a focus on solo levelling.

Penance Raiding Build

• 58/13/0
  

This build is the level 70 Disc build modified slightly for 80 compatibility. The big changes between this spec and the level 70 one are as follows:

• Take Improved Inner Fire over Silent Resolve because of the added spell power.
• Divine Aegis should proc a lot due to crit playing a major role.
• Aspiration will lower the cooldown of a lot fo useful abilities but is mainly taken for Penance.

Smiter with Spirit of Redemption and Pain Supression

• 42/28/0 +1

Crit heavy Holy build

Bliz seems to be itching to open up an intellect build for healers. In fact, it is difficult to choose talents in the holy tree while avoiding crit considerations. Holy specialization and Test of Faith increase crit chance 5% or 11% if target is under 50% health. Holy concentration * Imp Holy conc, together with Surge of Light give an almost 50% chance of a clearcasting state after a healing crit. The clearcasting state with this build procs a mana-free flash heal, a mana-free greater heal, and 30% spell haste for two greater/binding/flash heals. I need verification, but a holy crit would seem to open up a spell hasted sequence of greater heal + greater heal + flash heal for the mana cost of a single greater heal cast. Alternatively, if casting mana-free spells does not reset the 5 second timer, healers could use a critical heal to cast a mana-free greater heal + flash heal and quickly thereafter begin to recharge mana.

• 14/57/0

High spirit Holy build

A more traditional build focusing on high spirit. This build extends to Mental Agility to receive the 10% mana reduction bonus to instant cast spells.

• 20/51/0

Imp Divine Spirit Holy Build

A new version of the old Holy/Disc hybrid build. This allows you to have Imp. Divine Spirit while getting a lot of the goodies out of the Holy tree (minus CoH). If you raid consistently with another priest that has CoH this is a great secondary build that can heal main tanks all night long due to their larger mana pool. Casters will also love the Spirit buff.

• 28/43/0

Solo PvE Shadow build

High damage build focused on solo PvE play. For a raid environment, priest could take Shadow Affinity and/or Psychic Horror instead.

• 14/0/57

Shadow Raiding Build

High damage with mana efficiency.

• 14/0/57

Holy Leveling Build

A WotLK build for a solo holy priest. Focus is on abilities to maximize solo DPS and healing in 5 men instances while leveling.

• 17/51/3

Holy-Crit Build (PvE)

A build based on Holy Concentration (Improved) and Surge of Light while keeping mental agility up. It is based on a stable mp5 and a decent crit rate (try to keep spirit and intellect 1:1 and build up you crit to 20%). Keep an eye out for buffs that pop up and use them wisely.

Note: A priest can choose to put 2 points from Healing Focus into Improved Renew; however, it has been noted that damage received in most heroics and some raids can increase in this case, and it's considered that putting those 2 points in Healing Focus can be a better use.

• 13/58/0

Hybrid-Holy/Discipline Build

A build based on maximizing healing and mp5 without Guardian Spirit. Sacrificing a few of the higher holy talents for pure healing power of the mid range discipline tree, this spec is excellent for constant big heals and focuses completely on heroics and raids, and not soloing. Sacrificing Divine Providence for mental strength (15% intelect) and incorporating Divine and Improved Divine Spirit for the extra 80 spirit and 120 sp. Also Focused Power (increases healing by 4%) costs only 2 talent points whereas Test of Faith costs 3 (6% more healing and crit chance on target below 50% health). This spec is purely healing power and mana efficiency.

• 30/41/0

Hybrid Power Infusion Build

This build is based on Boosting the power of your MP5 and Healing power at the same time. With this spec you trade the usual Circle of Healing for Power Infusion. Power Infusion is a double-edge sword. It can not only be cast on yourself to increase your mana efficiency, but it can also be used to help DPS of casters in your raid. I find it to be very useful in a main-tank healing situation.

• 31/40/0

Selecting Your Talent Tree

Warriors have the choice of three talent trees: Arms, Fury and Protection.

Arms is known for Mortal Strike and Bladestorm which makes it popular for PvP along with Improved Hamstring.

Fury is known for Titan's Grip and has higher sustainable single target damage than Arms making it popular for PvE.

Protection is the tanking tree. The introduction of Shockwave as part of WotLK has increased a Warrior's ability to simultaneously tank multiple targets.

Arms Warriors use one 2H weapon, whereas Fury Warriors duel wield 2H weapons. Protection Warriors use one 1H weapon and a shield.

Leveling Builds

Protection

As of patch 3.0.2, leveling as a protection warrior is actually not so tedious. Here is a good way to start:

• Level 70 - Protection Build
  • Levels 10-14 : Start with 3/3 Improved Thunder Clap, then put 2 points into Shield Specialization.
  • Alternatively, do not put points into Imp. Thunderclap. Using Thunderclap will slow enemy attacks which slows rage generation which slows leveling.
  • Levels 15-19 : 3/3 Incite is good since you'll be using Thunderclap a lot for extra damage early on. Put 2 more points into Shield Specialization to get to the next tier.
  • Levels 20-24 : 2/2 Improved Revenge is next because you'll be using it to do most of your damage in the early levels. Now get Glyph of Revenge which now creates a dps dependency on being able to dodge, block and parry opening Revenge and in turn producing a free Heroic Strike. Dump extra rage into Thunderclap at this point. The next 3 points can split into Shield Mastery and/or Anticipation because they can both indirectly improve chances to use Revenge.
  • Levels 25-29 : Use the next few levels to finish out Shield Mastery, Anticipation, and grab Last Stand.
  • Levels 30-34 : Gag Order is a choice you can make, I use Shield Slam quite often in the later levels and the extra 10% really helps slam mobs into the ground. Concussion Blow is helpful for survival in tough fights. You can choose other talents for sure here since neither of these will really help you level faster.
  • Level 35-70 : The rest of the talents sort of come in order from here on. Make sure you spend 51 points in the Protection tree before moving to another tree. I know Armored to the Teeth looks promising for more dps, but the talents at the bottom of the Protection tree are much better especially Sword and Board and Damage Shield.

And yes gear wise, find the best shield you can get.

Level 80 Builds

Arms

• Blade Storm with Piercing Howl(PvP) (57/14/0)

• Arena build for 2v2 and 3v3 (54/17/0)

• Arms PVE build (54/17/0) - Focuses on maximising DPS with bleeds, overpower and execute.

Fury

• Weekend's Fury PvE Raiding Variation w/ Bloodsurge (18/53/0)
  • Rotation: (Bloodrage>Berserker Rage)>WW>BT>Slam(if BT crits)>Heroic Throw>HS>Battle Shout>Demoralizing Shout>Battle Stance>Rend>Thunderclap>Overpower if it procs>'Beserker Stance rinse and repeat>Battle Stance after Rend has dispelled off of mob/boss'.
    • Rotation requires practice but keeps the global cooldown moving a long and when each move is accessed by the time you return the cooldown will be finished. Rage should not be a big issue. I've incorporated Bloodsurge because from experience I've had high crit ratio with a Bloodsurge Slam.
  • Glyphs: Major: Glyph of Heroic Strike, Glyph of Rending, Glyph of Whirlwind. Minor: Glyph of Battle, Glyph of Bloodrage, Glyph of Thunder Clap.
  • Precision, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Warrior talent) and 1 point in Weapon Mastery (warrior talent) is utilized for very high hit chance and damage . Fury warriors after patch 3.0.8 will become even more viable at melee DPS due to the 5% hit penatly being removed from Titans Grip
  • Notes: Macros and key binding will be powerful tools. Bloodrage and Berserker Rage should be used often, try to not use them when you are about to switch stances, it will be a waste of cooldown and rage. Enrage (warrior talent) is often overlooked by many raiding guilds, but it gives all melee and spellcasters within range a large dps boost. Death Wish and Recklessness are used at player's discretion. Warriors have stances so you can utilize a variety of spells during a fight, I highly reccomend no matter what build you choose to analyze the best route for maximizing damage or threat. Always remember your role in a raid/instance, when there are no other warriors, or the tank is a non-warrior tank, use your Sunder Armor, Demoralizing Shout, and Thunder Clap these abilities will go a long way regardless of the raid/instance.

• Elgrun's AoE? Fury PvE Raiding
  • Notes: This spec works best if you have a paladin with Improved Blessing of Might because this spec dose not have Commanding Presence but with Ret paladins putting out the kind of dps that they are its fairly common to find one in a 25 man. This spec also misses out on Weapon Mastery and if you have a decent amount of expertise and a weapon chain on your weapon this is a negligible talent.
  • Glyphs: Glyph of Whirlwind, Glyph of Cleaving, and Glyph of Execution these are the important ones.
  • How To's: Real simple play style of spamming Bloodthirst, Whirlwind, on BT crits Slam, and Cleave to dump your rage (i tend to be spamming this and still have enough rage to BT and WW).Don't be afraid to cleave tanks now have so much TPS that its difficult for a fury warrior to pull off any tank Take note of using Death Wish when ever you feel that you can, the 5% increased damage is not enough to strain the healers beyond there limits.

• Unstoppable PvE Build (18/53/0)
  • Rage generation is not an issue and this is by far the best dps build I have found using the Rotation Recklessness-BT-WW-Slam(With or Without Proc to reset the rotation) With a Heroic Strike in there when above 50 Rage. Huge amounts of damage with this PvE build.

• PvE Raiding Build w/ Bloodsurge (18/53/0)
  • Precision (Warrior talent) and Weapon Mastery (warrior talent) create maximum hit chance.

• PvE Raiding Build w/out Bloodsurge (18/51/2)
  • Since Slam is not effective on many bosses regardless of cast time, it is dropped in favor of Improved Execute & Improved Bloodrage.
  • Tactical Mastery, Improved Charge & Improved Bloodrage create maximum rage generation.
  • Rotation: Execute>BT>WW(If Rage>50)>Heroic Throw>HS.
  • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Warrior talent) chosen in favor of Armored to the Teeth. Six % damage > 2-3% AP.
  • Glyphs: Heroic Strike, Execution, Whirlwind. Minor: Battle, Bloodrage, Charge

• Titan's Grip without Unbridled Wrath (19/52/0)
  • Armored to the Teeth and Booming Voice chosen in favor of Unbridled Wrath for maximum AP and shout duration.
  • Rotation: BT>Slam if BT crits>WW>Repeat(HS if rage is above 55).

• Titan's Grip without 2H Weapons Specialization (17/54/0)
  • Rotation of BT>Slam if BT crits>WW>Repeat(HS if rage is above 55)
  • Feedback: Choosing Armored to the Teeth over Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Warrior talent) makes no sense.

Protection

Getting Started

• These 28 talent points are in most tanking builds. (5/0/23)
  • All 7th-11th tier Protection talents are a must except Safeguard.
  • This leaves eight elective points that must be used within the Protection Tree.

    • Improved Spell Reflection, Improved Disarm and Gag Order can be selected to increase defensive abilities.

    • Improved Thunder Clap and Puncture can be selected to reduced the rage cost of abilities.

    • Incite and One-Handed Weapon Specialization (Warrior) and can be selected for improved offense and threat generation. Note that One-Handed Weapon Specialization (Warrior) increases all damage dealt while wielding one-handed weapons, not just damage dealt with a one-handed weapon, thus increasing all threat generated by 10%.

Off Spec Talent Points

• After Deflection is selected, you have 15 elective talent points.
  • Maximum Health.
    • Commanding Presence is helpful for raid boss tanking.
  • Maximum Rage Generation.
    • Improved Charge, Tactical Mastery, Anger Management and Improved Bloodrage creates additional rage.
  • Alternatively, you can select Protection Talents not already selected.

Overview

Hunters are known for their pets, their long-range, sustained DPS, and their traps.

The three trees of a Hunter are all viable for a hunter to choose for leveling, player versus player combat, or end game raids or instances, but since only two of the three trees allows for the complete use of talent points the player is forced to cross trees, hybridizing into other talent trees. The three trees all have options to offer for utility, open DPS, and survivability.

Beast Mastery

Beast Mastery offers the highest potential personal DPS in the game for hunters in the raiding environment. This statement is only true if said hunter can use his pet effectively and understands the importance of ranged attack speed in rotation. BM is also the fastest leveling build, as uptime is limited only by the health of your high-armor pet.

• Beast Mastery (52/19/0)

  • Well, as we all know...the potential builds have changed significantly since WotLK was released. The builds are much more varied than ever before. Without having gone into all the math to figure out exactly how much damage can be caused by each talent, I've put together what seems to be a logical build for level 80. The changes in the structure of the trees allow us Hunters to invest more heavily in the BM tree and still maximize our damage. With previous patches, a BM hunter needed to have significant points in the Marksmanship tree to be viable as a raid participant. Here, I've developed a build that goes deep into the BM tree, and uses only 19 points in Marksmanship to maximize DPS. The important thing to remember here is that your pet is the focus of most of your damage. This is why I chose to invest in Endurance Training instead of Improved Aspect of the Hawk.

Disadvantages of Beast Mastery

A large part of the Hunter's damage is imbued in the pet, who must be alive in order to use Bestial Wrath/Beast Within. This is frequently seen as a fatal flaw to the build. This is especially the case in arenas, where your pet will often be the main target of the opponent. Seeing as it does not scale with resilience and only very little with your armor and stamina, it makes an easy target which severely cripples a BM hunter. In raids, the hunter alone should have no trouble keeping their pet alive with Mend Pet and careful control of the pet's actions (treat your pet as a player, do YOU draw aggro from the Main Tank?). Should the pet die, the Beast Master can recover quickly and cheaply with Improved Revive Pet. Nevertheless, Beast Mastery play-style requires a significant amount of diligence in managing the pet's actions and threats on top of managing threats to the hunter.

Marksmanship

This strength of this tree lies in burst damage. Your shots are far slower than that of the BM hunter, but you hit quite a bit harder. This tree is also the land of PVP talents.

• MM raid build (5/51/5)

  • Standard raid build with steady shot steady shot steady shot chimera shot rotation

Disadvantages of Marksmanship

This is a PvP Talent tree, yet the best Raid Specs all include at least 10 points from this tree. A design flaw yes, but as far as any actual flaws, the core Marks Builds have less sustained DPS and are less mana efficient than BM builds.

Survival

Out of the three Talent Trees available to a Hunter, Survival is the least chosen spec. Survival Tree is mostly considered as the PvP tree due to the many abilities that help with Survival and Melee combat. But this Talent Tree if points are spent wisely can hold its own against the other Trees in terms of DPS and damage. Survival plays on the Hunter's main stats: Agility, Attack Power and Crit Chance.

• Survival (7/13/51)
  • This build is designed to give the Hunter maximum DPS for PvE. By dodging around abilities that increase Hunter's melee capabilities, which would be useless in PvE, this build is able to give the Hunter the three main stats needed by a Hunter. Because of Lightning Reflexes this build is optimal for high agility Hunters, and this in turn giving more Attack Power and Crit Chance to the Hunter. With Careful Aim and Hunter vs. Wild also giving more Attack Power to the Hunter these Talents in turn improve the effect of Expose Weakness which is activated when a Hunter Crits. So that the Hunter crits more to activate Expose Weakness and deal out more damage points have been put in Lethal Shots, Killer Instinct and Survival Instincts aswell as the possible +10% crit chance ability of Master Tactician.

Disadvantages of Survival

Expose Weakness is now only applicable to to the Hunter. Also, you may notice a slight decline in your damage compared to other builds because it takes more of an effort to be a good Survival DPS Hunter.

Which build is best for what purpose?

Heroics

In heroic instances a hunter is required to CC targets, forcing them to either excel at kiting, or spec into a build with redundancy in case a trap is resisted. The main talents that give this are Readiness and Wyvern Sting, and to a lesser extent Scatter Shot. Note that having Trap Mastery can make things easier, but a trap being resisted or breaking is the biggest danger and it doesn't help with that at all.

Raiding

Beast Mastery is the first and foremost DPS raiding build. In fights where Pet Survivability is really difficult (and with higher gear levels), Survival becomes about equal. Survival scales well with the Agility your gear has on it, increasing your personal DPS very much through high Crit percentages and high Attack Power. If Surv Hunter with 800 Agility and a BM Hunter were in the same raid on Leotheras, but the BM Hunter's pet dies, and sometimes more than once, the advantage of Surv on that fight becomes clear. While Marks is also viable at high gear levels, Survival is THE alternative to BM.

PvP

The Hardcore PVP Hunters are generally Marks/Surv and may or may not take the health talent from the BM tree. Marks was designed as the PVP tree for hunters, and the design holds true, as it offers more burst DPS, less crit-reliant DPS, and the very utile Silencing Shot and Scatter Shot. Improved Concussive Shot is also a must-have for PvP.

Solo DPS

Beast Mastery and Marksman builds are both very viable soloing specs. Survival not completely bad, but killing can be slower, since you miss out on the Improved Multishot damage. Scatter shot is also very useful in soloing.

Elemental

Leveling

52/19/0

This build focuses on high damage output and buffing the Shamans main spells and abilities. With all these talents, the Shaman has a total of 13% additional crit chance on all lightning abilities not including gear. With all the crit talents comes some mana regeneration and some more utility with your Flame Shock.

Group/Raiding (PVE)

54/17/0

This build focuses on high damage output and more group utility. Shaman are becomming more of a group/raid tool for their Elemental only buffs they give to casters. This spec also grabs Elemental Warding to reduce damage being done to you by raid mobs. On raid bosses, 17% (446 Hit Rating) total hit percentage is needed to never miss with a spell. With Elemental Precision, that drops it to 14% (368 Hit Rating) needed from gear.

52/14/5

This spec is designed to maximize a Flame Shock, Lava Burst, and Lightning Bolt rotation while still remaining mana efficient and being mindful of survivability. It has the stock Lightning Bolt enhancements we all know and love, plus Call of Flame, Lava Flows, and Storm, Earth and Fire to enhance Flame Shock and Lava Burst. In addition Elemental Weapons was included for more spell power overall, and Shamanistic Focus and Totemic Focus for added mana efficiency. These talents with Glyph of Lava, Glyph of Flame Shock, and Glyph of Flametongue Weapon make for a effective DPS build, while remaining survivable through the increased range of the spec and the minimal 4% off some incoming damage from Elemental Warding.

43/8/20

This spec is a level 80 version of the old level 70 Lightning Bolt spam rig. The 10 points spent between Tidal Focus, Improved Healing Wave, and Improved Reincarnation can be shifted around to meet ones own personal play style. Also 2 points from Lightning Overload or Elemental Oath can be shifted around, possibly to Thundering Strikes to increase static crit rate(though I would only suggest removing the points in Elemental Oath if you have another Elemental Shaman in group that has it.) The spec also allows you to act as a spot healer in a pinch moment though you will burn through mana fairly quick.

PvP

52/19/0

Grabbing all the damage reducing talents in this tree will make you a lot more durable in both big and small battlegrounds. PvP situations can differ depending on what other classes you could face. Some situational talents are defered like Lightning Overload and Lava Flows because to get the most out of them, you need to be constantly casting. This usually is not possible, especially when there is a melee class preventing most of your spell casts. Your best bet is to Frost Shock and Earthbind Totem to kite away from them in order to pull out a few extra spells. Ranged and casters are more likely to be played closer as you can interrupt them better and also prevent them from kiting you.

Enhancement

Leveling

11/60/0

This build is an amazing way to hit level 80 in no time. It focuses on high damage output along with utilities that boost mana and health regeneration when needed. Using Shamanistic Rage coupled with Feral Spirit everytime they are off cooldown potentially means little to no downtime along with bigger amounts pulls of mobs. This build also steals some spell enhancing talents from the Elemental tree to make not only your melee instant strikes hit hard, but also increase damage output with your spells. With the thanks of Maelstrom Weapon, tossing a Stormstrike on the enemy and using Chain Lightning when there are five stacks of Maelstrom Weapon applied will cause your Chain Lightning to become your favorite "Shock" spell.

Group/Raiding (PVE)

14/57/0

This build also takes advantage of the Elemental Warding talent that reduces certain spells damage by 10%. It also takes advantage of Static Shock as you should not be getting hit by mobs. So, to get damage with your orbs, the 6% chance to toss some extra DPS is nice plus there are more charges, reducing the times you need to reapply it. You also take advantage of an increased amount of Stormstrike charges if you can get all 4 off the mob before it expires. Unleashed Rage is also an amazing talent to buff melee DPS in bigger raids.

PvP

12/59/0

This is a standard PvP build that covers most of the PvP highlights in this tree. Improved Ghost Wolf will enable quick getaways in order to heal up or when threatened with danger. Again, Static Shock will reduce the number of times you need to reapply your Lightning Shield. Earthen Power is an amazing utility that will enable any quick getaway with Ghost Wolf combined. Finally, Feral Spirit will not only heal you as your wolves do damage, but thwy can really annoy any caster trying to mess with you.

Restoration

Group/Raiding (PVE)

(26/8/37)

Many people find leveling a Restoration shaman tedious and slow because they sacrifice a lot of DPS for an increase in healing. A costly solution to this is to use an Elemental build for solo questing, and a Restoration build when grouping up for 5-man instances. Another solution might be to choose one of the elemental/restoration hybrids to draw synergies from the spell power you already possess as a restoration shaman (this applies only to players going from 70 to 80). For a starting shaman leveling with an exclusive resto build from level 10 and up is no easy feat. If you decide to do so you should consider the following build. The build will aim for good healing capabilities in 5-man instances but also get some talents that will help your leveling. One solution is to use a hybrid build like this suggestion for leveling/instancing or lvl 80 questing and instancing. There are a fair bit of freedom in the resto tree, this is a good build for mp5 so it could probably be used as on off healer/dps for raids.

The Patriach/Matriarch (level 80)

(0/13/58)

Depending on if you put your points in Healing Focus (Shaman talent) or Healing Grace you might have to respec. Take into consideration how often do you gain aggro in groups before you decide how many points you want to spend on Healing Grace. If you don't know the group or tank you are healing some agro reduction might be in order. How often are you getting pounded while healing while out in the wild, you shouldn't pick Healing Focus (Shaman talent) with 5-man runs in mind, its primary a solo talent, leaning towards PvP.

Raiding (PVE)

Standard Raid Healing

(0/16/55)

This Build offers a 14% increase in crit with all spells, this allows ancestral healing, improved water shield, and ancestral awakening to proc fairly often. Keeping earth shield on the tank and water shield on you are always important, but with this build there is no benefit from improved shields so they have to be up at all times. I have had mana issues with this build before, but now i have over 150 more mp5. Shamanistic focus is added for either when you manage to pull aggro or your getting put on interrupting it will save a large chunk of mana. This does not include tidal focus, there are many other useful places for those 5 points.

Chain Healing / Improved Shields / Crit

(0/16/55)

This Build gives you all the good talents for Shields and Chain healing. Adds also alot of crit, enough not to need the Tidal Force talent. Also I skipped Healing grace as most tanks generate huge amounts of aggro. Healing Way and Improved Healing Wave are useless talents because if you're allocated to healing main Tank something is wrong with your raid setup. The best way to heal with this build is to keep Chain Healing when necessary, and keep the Riptide for instant heals before a Chain Heal on a target getting too much damage. You can use Lesser Heal to heal fast also and with the Ancestral Awakening and the amounts of crit you should heal one extra target too. Best practice is to heal the Earth Shield target and have the glyph [1] for the extra 20% increased Lesser Healing Wave on target affected by Earth Shield.

Healing Wave / Crit

(0/16/55)

This is mostly oriented towards heroics. The Healing Way talent plus short Healing Wave allows the caster to use Healing Wave on the tank and with the Glyph of Healing Wave heal himself while healing tank (or other member of party). You will do Riptide (to shoten Healing Wave time) then Healing Wave on the tank or member in hard times. Also the Tidal Forces makes it even better because with crits you can heal yourself with big heals and trigger Ancestral Awakening. This will make all heals from shaman viable: Healing Wave for big trouble on single target, Riptide for shortening that heal and added as an instant inbetween, Lesser to heal an offparty up while still doing Healing Wave, and Chain Healing if more members in same spot and more aoe not so much single target damage.

Paladin Builds

This site lists different talent builds for paladins of World of Warcraft. Many of these paladin builds come from forums, wowwiki or even myself. I hope you find the following builds useful.

I will be updating this page a lot over the coming months as 3.0 and WOTLK will cause a lot of changes in builds. If some of the builds become invalid I apologize and I will try to remove expired builds as soon as I can. If you notice any build that is expired please email me.

Finding the right paladin build that has been tested and works can save you a lot of gold.

Paladin Builds

This area lists paladin talent builds for World of Warcraft. Some of these builds will be for the current 3.0.2 version and some will be for WotLK. If you have any questions or suggestions please give me an email.

Holy Builds

• 1 - 51/5/5 - Pure PvE(LvL 70)
• 2 - 43/18/0 - PVP spec(LvL 70)
• 3 - 51/5/5 - Healbot PVE Healer Build (LvL 70) - this is your classic PVE Healing build. It provides you with every healing talent and spell Holy has to offer as well as the basic Buff – BoK from Prot and 10% instant cast mana cost reduction from Ret. This is one of the most widespread builds pre WotLK.
• 4 - 53/0/18 - Healbot PVE Healer Build (LvL 80) - build which will still include full range of Holy Talents while taking advantage of the extra 8% crit from the Ret Tree
• 5 - 54/10/7 - Expanded Healing/Buffing - makes the healer less interruptable as well as adding Blessing of Kings, Improved Blessing of Might, and mana cost reduction for all instant cast spells.

Protection Builds

• 1 - 0/56/5 - Pure Tanking Spec(LvL 70)
• 2 - 0/54/7 - Tank Spec(LvL 70)
• 3 - 5/56/9 - Cookie Cutter Tank Build(LvL 80) - standard "cookie-cutter" tank build for Wrath.
• 4 - -
• 5 - 5/58/7 - PVE Only Protection Build(LvL 78)
• 6 - 5/56/9 - Tanking Build (Revised) (LvL 79)
• 7 - 5/56/10 - Protadin Raid Build(LvL 80) - this is a build focused on keeping the Paladin's survivability high while still generating a good amount of threat as well as keeping mana efficiency.
• 8 - 5/56/10 - Shadobeast's WotLK Tanking Build - Protection Paladins in Wrath of the Lich King get several new talents, which are primarily used to increase the damage of your tanking abilities, as well as reducing mana costs of several abilities. This spec uses most, if not all, of the new WotLK talents for protection, as well as stealing a few talents from holy and ret for things like mitigation, agro, and the mitigation of CC.
• 9 - 0/55/6 - AOE Prot Build

Retribution Builds

• 1 - 0/5/56 - PVE Ret build(LvL 70)
• 2 - 0/25/46 - Very Heavy Single Target Damage Pure Retribution Spec(LvL 80) - (Reckoning) (No Spiritual Focus)
• 3 - 2/25/44 - Heavy Single Target Damage Spec (LvL 80) - (Reckoning) (2/5 Spiritual Focus)
• 4 - 5/25/41 - Moderate Single Target Damage Spec(LvL 80) - (Reckoning) (5/5 Spiritual Focus)
• 5 - 7/18/46 - Moderate Single Target Damage Pure Retribution Spec(LvL 80) - (No Reckoning) (5/5 Spiritual Focus)
• 6 - 7/10/54 - Very Heavy Single/Multi Target Damage Pure Retribution Spec(LvL 80) - (Divine Storm) (5/5 Spiritual Focus)
• 7 - 0/18/53 - Very Heavy Single/Multi Target Damage Pure Retribution Spec (LvL 80) - (Divine Storm) (No Spiritual Focus)
• 8 - 18/0/43 - Ret/Holy(LvL 70)
• 9 - 18/0/43 - HoT Paladin(LvL 70) - The idea behind it is simple: Instant FoL’s, HoT’s and JoTW. You get the basic healing talents from Holy which believe me will still allow you to heal adequately but you add the Hybrid feel from Ret.
• 10 - 0/5/66 - Sun Warrior Build - This build is designed to do well in all environments, but especially in PVE. It emphasizes Holy magic damage over physical but has plenty of both and loads of group utility.

Hybrid Talent Builds

• 1 - 40/21/0 - Beacon hybrid 10 man raid spec(LvL 80)
• 2 - 40/21/0 - Solo boss killing spec(LvL 80)
• 3 - 37/0/34 - JoTW Healer Build(PVE/PVP) - Downsides include: lack of Beacon of Light, Judgments of The Pure, Enlightened Judgments and Holy guidance which translates into: 10 Yard Judgment Range, -120 Spellpower, -15% Spellhaste and no Utility Heal. Advantage are (over a cookie cutter build): 15% run speed increase, 100% chance to remove a Stun with HoF, 1 min 20 yard 1 min PVE, 6 sec PVP CC, and the mother of it all – Judgements of the Wise. This build capitalizes on having a significant amount of mana being restored every time you judge and having some increased Utility over the cookie cutter. You can gem for +healing instead of MP5 regaining +Spellpower lost with Holy Guidance and with superb crit I foresee little to no Mana Issues when utilizing JoTW. Good build when used properly. "
• 4 - 39/10/22 - Stout Defender (PVP)(LvL 80) - it takes advantage of majority of the Holy talents while dabbling into Prot and Ret for some Utility such as Spellcrit, Improved HoF and Dispel resistances.

Balance

Its is a common misconception that as druids are a hybrid class they will only be able to approach, but not match, the pure DPS classes. Although a warlock/mage has a larger arsenal of DPS spells, a properly specced druid can match, and in some cases surpass, the DPS of warlocks/mages. Blizzard has stated they want Hybrid classes to approach the DPS of pure classes much closer in Wrath of the Lich King.

In PvP, balance druids are able to use their moonkin form to absorb large amounts of damage, and with recent talent additions suffer little knockback with many of their abilities. This has made a balance druid (specced correctly) a very exceptional class in PvP. However, due to the inability to use restoration spells in moonkin form the sometimes necessary tactic of dropping form and healing means a large mana cost and can be cumbersome.

Although druids in balance spec MAY have less DPS than a mage/warlock, druids in moonkin form have an amour value similar to that of a warrior, giving then a lot more flexibility. Mages/warlocks are highly susceptible to melee damage, and the moonkin forms high armor seriously mitigates this and gives them that little edge in raiding.

There has not yet been much detailed discussion around the "best" balance builds for level 80. These are really just some good examples to consider. In due course, the experts on the usual forums will undoubtedly do some serious theorycrafting to determine the "best" raid build to maximize DPS.

• PvE Raiding Spec w/ Starfall (55/0/16) - Overall good spec with raiding that incorporates Master Shapeshifter, Ecclipse, Omen of Clarity and many of the needed boomkin talents for raiding such as Balance of Power, Imp IS, Dreamstate, ect. Created by Zophir of Runetotem.

• PvE Maximum Balance (71/0/0) - There's a total of 4 points remaining to spend beyond 71 (not possible at level 80), so there's some scope to pull some points between talents to suite personal style and taste.

• PvE (RAID) Single Target DPS (56/0/15) - This is build focused on boss killing, with maxed single target DPS. Your DPS on trash will probably be a little lower than expected, but that is really not an issue on T7 content (and will make Patchwerk much easier).

Feral

Feral druids specialize in animal forms: cat form for damage and bear form/dire bear form for tanking. Prior to the expansion there was one main feral spec that allowed you to maximize in both DPS and tanking at the same time while leaving a little room for customization between pvp and pve. Since Wrath of the Lich King (patch 3.x), druids have lost their ability to be completely proficient in both tanking and DPS at the same time. Because of this a lot of druids choose one or the other. However a hybrid build for tanking/DPSing is still very possible. Just because you don't excel in one or the other doesn't mean you can't do both.

Bear form is the form used for tanking by druids. It's very similar to warriors in the fact that there's a rage bar present, you have high armor and high HP, and a lot of the skills/spells are similar (Maul is like Heroic Strike, Demoralizing Roar is like Demoralizing Shout, Survival Instincts is like Last Stand, etc...). Bears originally tanked by means of massive HP and extremely high armor mitigation (easily being able to hit the armor cap when geared in high end dungeon armor). Blizzard changed this with Wrath of the Lich King. Bonus armor and HP have been reduced from leather items but additional dodge and armor increase talents have been added. The HP of a bear tank can still be substantially more than that of a paladin or warrior.

Cat form is the source of physical DPS for a druid. It's very similar to rogues in the fact that there's an energy bar present and a lot of the skills/spells are similar (Shred is like Backstab, Pounce is like Cheap Shot, Rip is like Rupture, etc...). Before Wrath of the Lich King, cat DPS wasn't very desirable. A hunter or rogue was much more viable for physical DPS. However, since the expansion, cat DPS has dramatically increased. Savage Roar is the best thing that's been given to feral druids in a while. It's the equivalent of Slice and Dice for rogues in the fact that having it up increases damage by a VERY sizable amount. Because of this you want to make sure this talent is up at all times when DPSing.

As for the skill rotation used while in cat:

For an opener you have 2 options. If you open with Pounce you have a far less chance of drawing immediate agro. If you open with Ravage you'll do significantly more damage than pounce at the cost a lot more threat, especially if it crits. Use Savage Roar with the 1-2 combo points from the opener and then immediately Mangle to get that debuff up. You should be energy drained now, so pop Faerie Fire on your target. Do NOT take Faerie Fire for granted. It adds a worthy amount to your overall DPS. After using Faerie Fire, drop a Rake on the target. Your energy should be empty again. Next use Tiger's Fury (always make sure you're energy drained when you use Tiger's Fury so you don't waste the energy received from King of the Jungle) and then Savage Roar again. Next save up max energy (100). Use Berserk and go to town with Shred until you get 5 combo points. Now Rip. While Berserk is up you'll have massive combo point generation. Make sure that Savage Roar, Rip, Mangle, and Rake stay up (those are listed in priority). If all 4 are up and you have 5 combo points, feel free to pop a Ferocious Bite to dump the excess points.

• PvE Raid/Instance - Full Tank Build (0/60/11)

  • This build focuses completely on damage mitigation and maintaining threat/agro on a target in instances.
  • Passed skills and reasons why:
    • Feral Aggression - This is taken for DPS purposes only. The improvement to Demoralizing Roar is insignificant and can't be justified by 5 talent points.
    • Shredding Attacks - The -2 rage to lacerate is minimal when tanking. Rage shouldn't be an issue when your tanking.
    • Brutal Impact - Most bosses can't be stunned in end game content. If something CAN be interrupted, there's rogues, other druids, mages, and hunter to help with interrupts.
    • Predatory Instincts - This used to be a great skill, however it was nerfed in the 3.0.2 patch so that it doesn't apply to bears anymore. Thus this skill is useless to a tank.
    • King of the Jungle - This ability increases threat by a mere 15% for 15 seconds every 3 minutes at the expense of 3 talent points. Some people may want this for establishing initial agro on a mob/mobs, however I feel that 3 points is too much to justify this. Also, a good group will know to wait 3-5 seconds before engaging the mob.
    • Intensity - The automatic 10 rage could be handy in certain situations, however rage shouldn't be an issue when in an instance. Again, a good group should give you 3-5 seconds to get in there and get a couple hits in/build up rage before they start attacking.
    • Master Shapeshifter - 4% increased damage is fine but you have to invest 5 points to get it (3 into Natural Shapeshifter which is completely useless to a tank, and 2 into the actual skill). Plus you'll have to take from other more important skills to get to this.
      
  • If you feel you need one of the above skills over another, feel free to change it up. This is merely my opinion of the absolute most optimal full tank build for any situation based on my studies and experiences.

• PvE Raid/Instance - Full DPS Build (0/55/16)
  
  • This build assumes you want the maximum amount of DPS possible for raid damage.
  • Passed skills and reasons why:
    • Feral Instinct - When in an instance/raid you wont be stealthing around. This isn't needed.
    • Thick Hide - You're not tanking. Pretty self explanatory.
    • Feral Swiftness - This is for moving around fast and dodging as a tank. Not needed for pure DPS.
    • Brutal Impact - When raiding/doing instances, you wont be bashing, and that 1 extra second of pounce really doesn't do anything for you.
    • Natural Reaction - Blatant tank skill. Read it.
    • Protector of the Pack - Another obvious tank skill. Read it.
    • Primal Tenacity - While usable because of the fear redux factor, this talent is more geared towards PvP.
    • Infected Wounds - This is a GREAT ability for almost any feral spec...except for pure DPS. The attack speed redux is outstanding but your focus is dealing damage, not helping the tank take less damage.
      
  • If you feel that there's certain skills you need, swap points as you see fit. This build is strictly designed to put out the MAXIMUM amount of damage possible from the spec. The rest is based on your skill and gear.
    

• PvE Hybrid Spec - Tank and DPS Build (0/60/11)

  • All hybrid builds are arguable. What one person finds to be a good idea another may think is worthless. The best you can do is justify your build. This build is strictly my opinion of the best idea for a hybrid spec. This is the spec I use outside of raiding to grind/gather/do 5 man instances.
  • Opting out of Natural Reaction & Primal Tenacity on the tank side and Predatory Instincts & Master Shapeshifter on the DPS side allows for the druid to still tank and dps effectively, just not to the maximum potential.
  • You can tweak it as you see fit.
    

• Pure PvP Build for Feral Druids (0/57/14)

  • Let me start off by saying that as a Feral Druid in PvP you NEED a few talents that the previous build did not include, let me explain and take some time to nit pick.
    
    • Nurturing Instinct is the only effective way to heal yourself, we have limited mana now due to the new itemization Blizzard has bestowed upon us. It converts agility into the spell power that was taken away from us basically.
    • Survival of the Fittest counts as roughly 492 resilience. Which would explain why feral druid gear has much less resilience to begin with and makes this arguably one of the best talents for Feral Druids in PvP, yet again this talent was not included above.
    • Feral Swiftness, STOP! Why was this not included above? This talent makes you move 30% faster than most enemies you will face.
    • Feral Instinct is sort of debatable, but could make a difference in an arena against other Feral Druids or Rogues.
    • Master Shapeshifter is put down by a lot of people, but look at it as about 328 resilience reduction for your enemy. Crits = Win!
    • King of the Jungle - 2/3 was on purpose due to most of the time you will not need the full effect 3/3 gives you.

    Alright, I'm finished nit picking. Here's my recommended build for Feral PvP, Enjoy!

Restoration

The restoration tree empowers the druid's heal over time spells (HOTS) and their other generic healing spells. Generally thought of as a AoE damage healer or support healer, they are fully capable of main healing a tank in most scenarios. With 3.0 blizzard gave tree form the ability to use healing touch and other large cast time/amount healed spells, further allowing them to heal large quantities quickly.

In PvP resto hyrbrids were considered one of the most dominant classes in arena due to a combination of HOTS, good CC, mobility and good mana regen.

In PvE resto druids have a variety of tools for efficiently and sustainably healing a large number of targets over time and buffering tanks against spike damage. Druids as healers are most able to remain mobile while healing. They also have unmatched panic buttons with the powerful nature's swiftness + healing touch combo, swiftmend and tranquility. PvE druids can choose to specialise in HoTs for steady, sustained healing over multiple targets, in nukes for powerful single target healing, or in a combination of both for a jack-of all trades ability.

• PvE Resto (combination of HOTs and healing touch (glyph of healing touch is used) (14/0/57)

  This talent build is used in raid and heroics. With this you use HoTs (but not regrowth) and healing touch. For this talent build work successfully, you must use the glyph of healing touch (the glyph doesn't seems so good but try it and you will see). This way, with the naturalist and tranquil spirit, your healing touch is very efficient and with 1 sec cast. The combination of Healing Touch and HoTs is very good and will bring you on top of healing meters in raids.

• PvE Resto (15/0/56)

  • Focuses on HoTs and Living Seed. Takes all the improving HoTs talents, maximizes HPS by going into Balance and taking Nature's Splendor and Genesis. Also maximizes the healing of Regrowth by speccing into Living Seed. With Regrowth having a high crit chance, Living Seed is likely to proc often. For 3% more crit, points went into Natural Perfection though this can be optional. The key to this build is to stack mana regen (via int/spirit, not mp5) and spell power. You'll probably be in FSR most of the fight maintaining HoTs and Lifebloom.

• PvE Resto (11/0/60)

  Very flexible build that uses balance talents to emulate certain restoration talents to open up the Nature's Splendor talent to allow more flexibility in healing rotations, while saving talent points. Nature's Majesty replaces Natural Perfection to save one talent point with a very close effect, and Moonglow replaces Tranquil Spirit to save 2 talent points and only the Nourish skill is excluded from the reduced mana cost. Naturalist is replaced by Genesis to give more power to HoTs, but Empowered Touch still remains to make for a very powerful Nature's Swiftness->Healing Touch combination. You gain from this the additional Nature's Splendor talent, adding a tick or two to some of the best restoration HoTs, leaving you able to cast an additional spell or heal an additional target per rotation.

• PvP Resto (0/30/40)

  Pure resto PvP Survivability spec. An Ultimate must for druids looking to stay alive and still have all options available to them. Goes deep enough into feral tree for Thick Hide, Improved Stealth, Feral Charge, Survival instincts (like Battlemasters trinket), Feral swiftness for all around mobility and Brutal Impacts for longer opening stuns with pounce and a longer bash overall. We go far enough into the resto tree for all necessary healing needs. Not only do we retain the ability to use bear form for survival but offensive cc capabilities as well. There is one point to spare for users choice.

• PvP Resto (14/12/45)

  Pure resto PVP build. Points spent in feral give better survivability; improved stealth and thick hide with of course Survival Instincts. Balance points are put mainly because Nature's Grace and very strong choice for one point, Nature's Splendor. This build however sacrifices tree of life form, which can also be considered good because of the ability to cast roots and cyclone.

• PvE Resto (11/0/60)

  Fexible 5 man and raiding spec. Mana conservation with powerful HoTs and Nukes in rotation. Good for keeping your party/raid alive while still looking out for "Numero Uno"

• PvE Resto (9/0/62)

  Versatile jack of all trades spec for use of HoTs and nukes in rotation.

• PvE Resto (28/0/43)

  Druid nuke healer build- trades traditional HoT specialization and AE healing for superior mana efficiency and exceptional burst healing with nuke heals and regrowth.

• PvE Resto (14/0/57)

  Power HoT build, sacrifices nuke healing for high power and efficiency of HoTs.

Affliction Builds

The DoTs Curse of Agony and Corruption are some of the most mana-effective spells available for the Warlock. That is, the amount of damage per mana is higher compared to Direct Damage spells like Shadow Bolt. The Affliction talent tree can improve on these even more.

There is always the issue of the mob dying killed before the full completion of a DoT. This is especially bad for Curse of Agony, that causes more of its damage in the last third of its duration (and is often omitted or Curse of Elements used instead for this reason). If this happens, some mana will be wasted. With practice and depending on conditions, players can decided whether to use fewer DoT's for more mana efficiency or sacrifice some mana to kill enemies faster.

There are also some issues with using DoTs in parties and raids. In particular, many Crowd Control abilities break if the affected creature takes any damage. A mob affected by a DoT spell essentially becomes immune to a significant number of CC measures.

• Generic Affliction (53/0/18)

  • The general deep affliction raiding build. 3 points in suppression and cataclysm to lower the hit needed from items. Only 1 point in eradication because the other 2 points are better spent elsewhere, see explanation here. Spell rotation will be: keep all dots on the target and refresh them just after they have run out, cast haunt whenever it's off cooldwon, cast shadowbolt in between while target is over 25% health, drain soul when target is below 25% health (if all dots are on the target, this will tick for upwards of 9000 damage every 3 sections). If there is no moonkin or unholy death knight in the raid, put up curse of elements, otherwise curse of agony.
  • To adapt this build for normal and heroic instances the points from suppression and cataclysm should be spent somewhere else.
  • Pros: Great damage (on bosses) if played right. Use infernal/doomguard on bossfights for maximum dps.
  • Cons: Damage on trash mobs will be very low. Spell rotation is very complex and hard to keep up if the fights involve more than just standing around. Very little raid support.

• SL-SL with Nether Protection (25/17/29)

  • A flexible PvP build that combines strong DoTs with Dark Pact for mana and Soul Link and Nether Protection for survivability. With the Felhunter Master Demonologist buff nerfed, Nether Protection (now applying to all schools) provides protection from casters. Once the enemy is dotted and feared, watch Molten Core proc and finish with a few Searing Pain crits.

• Heavy Affliction with SL (57/14/0)

  • This build has all the atributes of SL/SL and a lot more damage. This build is specced to put as many affliction effects on the target as possible to give your drain life the maximum possible health gain.

Demonology Builds

The Demonology talent tree and the use of summoned demons are what mainly distinguishes a Warlock from a Mage.

With patch 3.0.2, Demonology became a far more viable building for PvE and PvP. Though, it will still not top the damage meters in a group of even geared players, you most likely will not be the bottom anymore. With the new talents added we are also able buff fellow casting allies the same way a Hunter buffs Melee based allies. In 2v2 Demonology is far more viable as well. With the addition of Metamorphasis and the spells that come with it, you are a force to be reckoned with.

• Metamorphosis/Ruin Raid (0/55/16)

  • This build is based off the damage boost from the Metamorphosis and the typical Shadowbolt spam of a raid lock, the crit bonus from Ruin, and a Felguard or a Succubus for the increased damage from Master Demonologist. You should also opt to have Glyph of Corruption for a Nightfall proc, since there is no better 3rd option.
  • Your spell rotation is going to be CoE, Corruption, Shadowbolt, Shadowbolt, (with optional use of immolate, which helps a lot if you have the tier 7, 2 piece set bonus) etc. Pop Demonic Empowerment whenever you can, as well as using Metamorphosis whenever possible. Time this with +spell damage trinkets if possible. The way Blizzard redesigned the destruction tree you can get all the talents that made shadow locks good in raids early on, except for Devastation. With the spell power bonuses from Demonic Knowledge and Demonic Pact, and damage bonuses from Demonic Empathy, Master Demonologist, and Imp. Shadowbolt, you can hit much harder than a regular pre-WotLK Destro Lock could. And even without all the procs you’ll be able to hit just as hard, with more raid utility since Imp. SB is now a self buff, whereas Demonic Pact is not and is a VERY useful raid buff. It may be worth switching two points from Improved Healthstone to Master Conjourer to gain maximum DPS. Recommended to use Glyph of Felguard, Corruption, and Shadowbolt.

• Fel Guard/Emberstorm (0/41/30)

  • This build is a basic build for PvE or PvP with survivability and Felguard pet for damage and fire/shadow damage from destruction.
  • Fel Guard/Emberstorm RAID (0/41/30)
  • This build is for undergeared players who are beginning heroics and naxx. This build can be used for light pvp and grinding but it shows its real beauty in raiding. Since most gear is haste heavy these days we make up for the low crit by putting talent points in demonic tactics and with haste being so plentiful it should be no problem getting you incinerates down to almost 2 sec. Even a very undergeared player can hit between 1300 and 1500 dps with no problem. The beauty of this build is the cycle is VERY easy. Curse of Agony or Curse of Elements, immolate, corruption then spam incinerate like crazy making sure to pop Demonic empowerment when ever you can. Also demonic sacrifice is in there for fights that require to much micro management and you cant keep your pet alive. Very effective till you get Tier 7 on and is a very easy learning build.

Destruction Builds

An interesting thing has happened since 3.0.2 came out. We 'locks are no longer tied to a specific school of magic. While this can be perceived as a boon to our kind due to the endless possibilities, it can also be considered a bit of a hindrance. We've become so much more complex, especially when it comes to the Destruction tree. No longer do I simply sac my Succubus, throw out a CoA and spam SB's until everything around me falls into a pile of steaming flesh. There's more to the Destructo-lock than before. Now that Spell-power is the way of the world, our gear no longer relegates us to being either a "shadow 'lock" or a "fire 'lock".

• Fire Destro (5/13/53)

  • A heavy destruction build very good for raiding. Cycle is immolate, (corruption), chaos bolt, incinereate, incinerate, conflagerate when under 5 secs left of immolate. Refresh corruption when it expires but it doesn't always fit with the cycle. I personally like to use a felhunter for the buff, and it does some damage when possible to have him in melee.
• Destro/SL pvp (0/11/60)
  • A heavy destro build based on my early experience. Now destruction is damage efficient and has the Soul Link survival ability.
• Fire Destro (Raid, no Conflag) (7/13/51)
  • A "fire" destruction spec, based on an old spec from here for lv70. Note that the spec does not include Conflagrate, due to the awkwardness of removing the immolate spell. Use an imp in raiding (perhaps moving points from improved life tap and/or improved healthstone into improved imp). Spell order is Chaos Bolt, Corruption, then either Curse of Agony, or perhaps Curse of Elements (less recasts) (check your DPS, still untested), Immolate, spam Incinerate, then just pop Chaos Bolt whenever you can, and reset your DoTs whenever they run out, and keep spamming Incinerate at other times.

• Fire/Imp Destro (0/19/52)

  • Destro build that utilizes the warlocks fire abilities. The points in demonology provide a dps and stam buff for you and your imp (and raid) as well as more survivability. Fel Domination/Master Summoner is for when your imp gets nuked. The points in improved healthstone (especially if you raid with other warlocks) can be spent in Soul Leech or Nether Protection.
  • Havent really perfected a rotation yet but what I've been using is Curse of Elements, Immolate, Incinerate, Chaos Bolt then spam Incinerate until immolate is about to expire and Conflag. Then Immolate, Incinerate, and Chaos Bolt rinse repeat.
  • If you have another lock that's dedicated to Curse of Elements or Affliction with the improved talent, use Corruption and/or Curse of Agony to proc Molten Core (any dps boost is nice!).
  • I've found this is best for bosses or mobs w/ 130k+ health.

• Fire lock/Major Imp (0/20/51)

  • This build is similiar to other Fire/Imp builds but kinda different. This build only uses points in Destruction to boost fire damage and has chaos bolt and empowered imp. In demonology it has improved imp and has 5 points in Unholy power to boost the imp's damage even more. I also recommend getting glyph of imp.
  • This build is a high dps build and is very viable for bosses. The rotation I think is best is Curse of Elements, Immolate, Chaos bolt, Spam incinerate until immolate is about to run out then conflagrate. Rinse and repeat.

• Shadow Destro [SM+S&F] (31/0/40)

  • Crit oriented, shadowbolt spamming build. Core elements in destro tree: Imp SB, Bane, Cataclysm, Ruin, Devastation, Backlash, S&F. In affi: imp CoA, Suppression, Imp and Emp Corruption, Nightfall, SM. One point is optional for eradication (seams best option) dark pact (which pretty much sucks now) or even shadofury if you can find use for it. Glyphs used by me are glyph of coruption, shadowbolt and shadowburn.
  • Warning: dmg on thrash mobs in hc's is likely to be low (due to low haste rating) and threat management can be hard.
  • Note that at the moment I'm using inferior build to this one that can be seen here which should be changed soon (I'm using dark pact with imp atm, and dont know yet what to do about pet when i change it to eradication)

• Chaos Bolt, Soul Link, Improved Corruption (5/15/51)

  • This build is mostly using Incinerate it does a significant amount of damage and your high crits will take your opponent down rather quickly. But you still have the ability to have your DoTs pick away at your enemy or use survival techniques like stunning or soul link to keep alive when you are in need of it most.
  • Most people have claimed that destruction is not a PvP build so i usually stayed away from it until now. I relearned my talents full destruction and i am very impressed. I was previously SL/SL which is an excellent arena build.
  • This build is made so that you can through your DoTs on and corruption will actually do some damage instead of being weakless like most destro builds. The 15 points in demonology is made for survivability. Demonic Embrace increases your stamina, improved healthstone heals you for a significant amount especially if you have the glyph, soul link splits your damage, and fel domination is used for moderately quick demon summoning. Improved Succubus may come in handy with the 'ol "seduce and nuke" technique.
  • The 51 in destruction is just getting your procs for and instant casts, protection and stunning with SF. Chaos Bolt was a little disappointing to me but its good for piercing through absorbtions and resistances. Getting big crits is usually helpful thanks to Backlash. The instant cast Incinerate or Shadowbolt proc comes up pretty often for me. I have the glyph for Shadowbolt so i usually incerate because it crits pretty high and emberstorm increases its damage. I am sure it will do well in BG's, but i am curious to see if it does well in arena because destro usually doesnt belong in arena.

We different talent builds for mages for World of Warcraft. Many of these mage builds come from forums, wowwiki or even myself. I hope you find the following builds useful.

I will be updating this page a lot over the coming months as 3.0 and the WOTLK. If some of the builds become invalid I apologize and I will try to remove expired builds as soon as I can. If you notice any build that is expired please email me.

Finding the right mage build that has been tested and work can save you a lot of gold and save you a lot of time figuring out a mage build that works for you.

PvE

Raiding mages generally want high single target DPS and/or lots of AOE power. Depending on your gear, length of the fight, movement, trash clearing, and interruptions, there's no real "perfect" raiding build. These are the standard builds for each school and how casting works to maximize DPS. Core talents are contained in the builds, extra talent points are available in some cases.

Frost

• (18/0/53) Deep Frost + Focus Magic
  • This build consists of spamming Frostbolt at all times while using the Water Elemental on every cooldown and stacking Icy Veins with damage trinkets and raid buffs like Bloodlust/Heroism. It invests into Arcane for Focus Magic for an increase in DPS and raid utility and takes mana-efficiency talents as well. It is the most mana-efficient Frost Mage spec. Points can be removed from all talents taken after Focus Magic for customisation, but it is imperative that the talent itself be in the spec.

• (0/18/53) Deep Frost + Ignite
  • This build has the same Frost core as the one above, but goes into Fire for Ignite and Master of Elements to streamline single-target DPS. It provides higher single-target damage, but lacks the raid utility of Focus Magic and provides less mana-efficiency overall than its Arcane alternative. Points can be removed from all talents taken after Ignite for utility such as Improved Blizzard and Ice Barrier, but Ignite itself is the core of the Fire offspec.

Fire

• (18/51/0 +2) Fireball build
  • This tree invests into Arcane for Spell Impact and Focus Magic. Its rotation is highly interactive, consisting of spamming Fireball at all possible times, using Scorch every 30 seconds to maintain the Improved Scorch debuff and casting Pyroblast when Hot Streak happens. Mage Armor should be used, and if the player finds themselves with manageable mana Living Bomb should be kept up on the target. Two points can be put in either Burning Soul or Flame Throwing, or into Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave. If the player has need of any other talents, World in Flames is a good place to remove points from, as its DPS impact is minimal.

• (0/51/18 +2) Frostfire build
  • Theorycraft has shown this to be the top Fire raiding build because of the early Frost DPS talents and the powerful crit modifier it gives to Frostfire Bolt. This build is based on Frostfire Bolt, and is classified as Fire rather than Elementalist for its steep expenditure into the Fire tree, while the Frost investment is puny in comparison, making it in reality a Deep Fire build. The rotation in this tree is exactly like the one in the above Fireball build, except replacing Fireball with Frostfire Bolt and using Living Bomb at all times. Frostfire Bolt is highly mana-efficient and has been shown to compete excellently with the Fireball build above in terms of DPS. Although Frostfire Bolt normally hits for less than Fireball, it crits hit much harder due to the number of modifiers and talents which activate on a critical hit: Burnout, Ice Shards and Ignite.

Arcane

• (53/18/0) Arcane Barrage + Ignite + Imp. Scorch
  • For optimal single-target DPS performance, alternate Arcane Barrage and Fireball. Scorch five times at the beginning of the fight and once every 5 seconds to keep up the Improved Scorch debuff. If the debuff is already present via a Fire Mage or Frost Mage (Winter's Chill), drop Improved Scorch for Master of Elements. Use Pyroblast on every Presence of Mind cooldown. .

PVP

Frost

• (20/0/51) Frost + TTW
  • An Arena standard, this Frost build has the most burst potential Frost can achieve through Deep Freeze and Brain Freeze, boosted by Torment the Weak. Improved Counterspell is also obtained, as are most utility Frost talents.When customizing this build, it is imperative that Arcane be kept at least so far as Magic Absorption, as it's a powerful defense against the unsnareable casters.

• (28/0/43) Frost w/Prismatic Cloak
  • The 'Frismatic' build combines the survivability and utility of Frost with Prismatic Cloak and Presence of Mind.The Frost part of the build can be customized as necessary to obtain specific talents such as Permafrost.

Arcane

• (58/13/0) Arcane Barrage, POM/Arcane Blast spec
  • this spec is meant for those who have more experience with the arcane tree. you will rely more on your arcane spells, more importantly not [pom + pyroblast] but more on [pom + arcane blast] its a spec i have been using heavily for pvp. great vs. retadins. also keep in mind some people seem to not have noticed that impact is not only for fire. it works globally now.

• (55/16/0)Arcane Barrage + POM + Pyroblast

• Combines the power of the 3 minute mage spec, and adds impact for a stun, and world in flames for a better crit chance.

This site lists different talent builds for rogues of World of Warcraft. Many of these rogue builds come from forums, wowwiki or even myself. I hope you find the following builds useful.

I will be updating this page a lot over the coming months as 3.0 and the WOTLK. If some of the builds become invalid I apologize and I will try to remove expired builds as soon as I can. If you notice any build that is expired please email me.

Finding the right rogue build that has been tested and work can save you a lot of gold and save you a lot of time figuring out a rogue build that works for you.

Rogue Builds

This area lists rogue talent builds for World of Warcraft. Beta WOTLK rogue builds will be listed in the beta section above.

Assassination Builds

• 1 - 42/5/14 - Level 70 Mutilate PVP Burst Damage
• 2 - 42/5/14 - Level 70 Mutilate FA/FW
• 3 - 51/5/5 - Level 70 Mutilate Hunger
• 4 - 51/5/5 - Level 70 Mutilate Hunger
• 5 - 41/5/15 - Level 70 Mutilate Build

Combat Builds

• 1 - 5/51/5 - Level 70 Combat Sword
• 2 - 11/43/7 - Level 70 Combat Dagger
• 3 - 5/51/5 - Level 70 Combat Fist
• 4 - 5/51/5 - Level 70 Combat Fist/Sword
• 5 - 5/51/5 - Level 70 Combat Mace
• 6 - 0/40/21 - Level 70 Hemo Sword
• 7 - 15/51/5 - Level 80 Combat PVE Raid Damage
• 8 - 18/52/1 - Level 80 Full Combat +vile

Subtlety Builds

• 1 - 16/3/42 - Level 70 Shadowstep Combat
• 2 - 5/0/56 - Level 70 Heavy Sub
• 3 - 10/0/51 - Level 70 Bsplatter/Punt

Hybrid Talent Builds

• 1 - 42/5/14 - Level 70 Mutilate PVP Burst Damage
• 2 - 42/5/14 - Level 70 Mutilate FA/FW
• 3 - 51/5/5 - Level 70 Mutilate Hunger
• 4 - 51/5/5 - Level 70 Mutilate Hunger
• 5 - 41/5/15 - Level 70 Mutilate Build

Leveling Builds:

Usualy I recomend using a combat/assasination build for leveling. I have listed the main combat build you may want to start with as it does a lot of sustained damage and is very good for PVE and for groups. To use this build just pick these talents in order:

• 2 points Improved Sinister Strike
• 3 points Improved Eviserate
• 5 points Dual Wield Specialization
• 2 points Improved Slice and Dice (level 21)
• 5 points Precision
• 1 point Endurance
• 5 points Aggression
• 1 point Bladeflurry (level 33)
• 5 points Sword, or Mace (recomend not using Dagger or Fist for leveling)
• 2 points Blade Twisting
• 2 points Weapon Expertise
• 1 point Adrenaline Rush (level 43)
• 3 points Vitality
• 1 point of either Endurance Improved Sprint or Improved Kick. (recomend Improved Kick)
• 5 points Combat Potency
• 1 point Surprise Attacks (level 53)
• 2 points Savage Combat
• 2 points Unfair advantage
• 2 points Prey on the Weak
• 1 point killing Spree (level 63)
• 5 points Relentless Strikes
• 2 points Malice (level 70)

Basically the meat of the build is now there and you now can spend points where you want them most. Usually I put a point in Improved Kick and a couple points Improved Poisons. If you follow putting you points in this way you will have very good build to PVE and grind with. Here is a link to this build:

Leveling Build

I suggest not going Fist as there are not many good Fist weapons in the game till you get to level 70. At 70 Fist or Fist/Sword is a good combo you may like.

Daggers were mainly associated with PVP builds. With the new 3.0.2 build mutilate has become a very popular build due to the huge damage output it can now do. With the change to mutilate now you no longer have to be behind your target. Daggers can be used for PVE and PVP now without sacrificing damage output.

How to Play a Rogue.

Learning how to play a rogue is a bit easier than it is to master most classes as we do not use a lot of skills compaired to some.

The main things you should know as a rogue is:

• What rogue builds to use.
• What gear to wear.
• What rotations to use to do the most damage.
• What skills to use to do the most damage.
• What poisons to use and when not to poison.

1. What Build To Use - Usually a combat build is best for PVE. Usually the sword or fist/sword is the best build for end game raiding for sustained DPS.

2. Rogue Gear - Rogue gear is a part of how much damage you can do. I recomend using Shadow Panther as this is a very good site for ranking rogue gear and lists stats and a link of where the gear comes from. There is a big difference on the gear you want for PVP or for PVE. The weapons you use is pretty standard. You want to use a very slow weapon for your main hand weapon, a mistake a lot of rogues make is using high speed weapons in the main hand. The off hand weapon should be a high speed weapon unless you are using a mutilate spec.

3. Combat Rotations - What rotations means is how many combo points to put into slice and then how many points to put into rupture/eviserate. A rotation is continuously repeated and is set so combo points are not wasted to keep slice and dice up without wasting points that can be used for damage.

4. Skills - Rupture is the best finishing move that can be used on most bosses or mobs that take a long time to die. Exceptions are if the boss/mob is imune to rupture or if the mob will die before a rupture can go through its full set of ticks. Rotations on bosses should always use rupture unless they are imune to this.

On mobs/bosses where you have to interupt spells/abilities make sure you save enough energy to kick/kidney shot/gouge.

Make sure you use your cool downs when they are up but try to use them when they will be of most use though. Using a cool down when it is up for no reason is a wasted cool down. Most of our cool downs do not take long to come back so do not be afraid to use them.

5. Poisons - In PVE usualy Deadly poison should always be on the off hand weapon. In most combat situations you should try to shiv with the offhand to keep the poison to stack 5 times and then shiv as needed to keep the poisons effect from falling off.

On this site, I will be collecting popular WOW Death Knight Builds and other resources on how to play a DK. As you may all know, Wrath of the Litch King expansion for World of Warcraft and the WOW Death Knight class is now active. This class is a damage dealer / tank hybrid. WOW Death Knights start at level 55 and is unlockable if you have level 55+ character on that realm. You can only have one Death Knight per server.

WOW Death Knights do not have shields, but do have good avoidance and powerful anti magic protection that have them being used as the main tanks against magic attack based bosses in raids. Currently they are a tank/damage hybrid and if spec'd right can make very good tanks. Don't think that because they do no use shields that they will not make effective tanks as they do make good tanks.

WOW Death Knights can dual wield or use 2-handed weapons. They use a unique rune system for their special skills so playing a Death Knight you will find you will be commonly be using combo rotations to maximize damage and agro.

Death Knight talents are split into 3 different trees:

• Blood: Talents in this tree focus on weapons, armor, healing, and strikes.
• Frost: Talents in this tree focus on armor, control, counters, and combos.
• Unholy: Talents in this tree focus on spells, summons, diseases, and AOE.

Updated on Dec 20th, 2008

Death Knight Builds

As I have people submit builds or I come across them myself I will be posting them here to share. I am just posting them as I find them right now, I know some are good and some are not so good. I am a little behind on posting new builds but I will be adding a lot soon, thanks for all of your submissions. Please feel free to email me about any of the below or any you wish to add. Please note the build type and number for ones you wish to comment on.

You can see the current trees at: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=j

Blood Builds 18 Builds currently listed

• 1 - 51/13/7 - Blood Tank - has an/ep
• 2 - 52/0/19 - Blood Unholy
• 3 - 51/13/7 - Blood DPS - very high DPS, has an/ep but also has healing skills
• 4 - 53/18/0 - Blood Leveling Spec - This is a 2h leveling build for a Death Knight. Hit Plague Strike first and Icy Touch second, getting the damage bonus to Icy Touch, to get your diseases on the Target, which increases your attack speed by 20% with this spec. Then hit obliterate with your remaining Frost and Unholy rune. This spec allows you to hit obliterate without consuming your diseases on the target. Use your unused blood runes on heart strikes. The mob should be dead by this point. You should heal through a lot of the damage you take with this spec, between Blood Worms, Blood Aura, and Vendetta. If you need to you can use Rune Tap but you should never need to use Death Strike for healing over Obliterate.
• 5 - 53/0/18 - DRW, shadow, and ghouls - party buffer while still putting out good threat.
• 6 - 51/0/20 - Blood Gorged Necrotic Corpse Detonator
• 7 - 45/0/26 - Ghoul Knight - A strong mix of Blood's soloing power and Unholy's Ghoul-strengthening and Shadow magic talents. The name of the build comes from the essential nature of the character type it creates- a standard hybrid fighter/caster plus strong companion/pet. Not a blood Knight, Frost Knight, nor Necromancer, but a Ghoul Knight.
• 8 - 56/15/0 - PVP Dual Weild Blood Build
• 9 - 45/26/0 - Bloody-Snowman - It's a Frost/Blood 2 Handed hybrid picking up talents like Improved Icy Talons, Deathchill, Lichborne, and Annihilation in Frost and Blood Strike, Hysteria, Vampiric Blood, Sudden Doom, Mark of Blood, Vendetta, and other talents I felt were good in Blood. You can switch some around if you like, like putting some in Rune Tap. This build is more PvE focused as a DPS/Support/Offtank but can also be good in PvP.
• 10 - 43/0/28 - Tedy's Unholy blood cursing - Leveling/PvP
• 11 - 52/12/7 - Minimual Downtime PVE build
• 12 - 51/20/0 - Blood Burst Dps (WrathKnight from realm Vashj)This talent build is primarily constant burst Dps. Depending on your gear, you can be doing on average about 4k-10k+ per hit, 10k+ being the crit damage of course. See bloodspec1 for more info.
• 13 - 47/21/3 - Bloody Burst pvp/dps Build - This build while giving you high dps it also gives you great survivability, Improved rune tap Lichborne + Deathcoil combo Higher armor Higher stamina Blood warms/Blood aura/Blood presence
• 14 - 28/43/0 - Bloody Obliteration Knight buildDPS for instances/raids OB-OB-BS-BS-DC-DC-OB-OB-OB is the basic rotation set up wasting runes on disease lowers your dps. This build is good but excels when having a DK tank and enhance shamans in grp/raid. Obliterate does over 50% of the dmg and crits over 50% of the time with this build, numbers improve with T7 set bonuses http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=792 and this sigil http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40207
• 15 - 51/13/7 - Pure PVE DPS #1
• 16 - 51/13/7 - Pure PVE DPS #2
• 17 - 53/0/18 - A Bloody Pale Horse
• 18 - 45/14/12 - Blood PVP Insane Regen Obliberate specIn this spec you use The usuall diseases, and pow pow with obliberate (massive dmg). and when u start to lose HP, just use your massive regen. Mark of blood, Rune Tap and vampiric blood.

Frost Builds 18 Builds currently listed

• 1 - 19/52/0 - Frost Blood
• 2 - 0/52/19 - Frost Unholy
• 3 - 0/60/11 - Frost Unholy PVP
• 4 - 8/56/7 - Frost Tanking build with Imp Icey Talons
• 5 - 14/50/7 - Chillrend's 'Glacial Resolve' - This build is meant for single target tanking, and should be considered by the Death Knight with MT aspirations. 'Glacial Resolve' is indeed similar to 'Death Rune Extreme' (as seen above), but with a few key differences. Both are versatile builds that use Death Rune Mastery and Blood of the North for easy rotation changes on the fly. Both builds rely on increasing avoidance stats through talents in all three trees. Both builds incorporate Rune Tap as a means of self-healing and tricky saves. One key difference between the two builds is that 'Glacial Resolve' sacrifices some of the *oomph offered by Black Ice in favor of better RP generation via Chill of the Grave, which, if nothing else, allows for more frequent use of abilities like Frost Strike. The extra couple of points go towards a guaranteed activation from Blood of the North, which should thereby improve the secondary avoidance provided by Blade Barrier, while at the same time improving the overall versatility of the build. One final difference between these builds is that 'Glacial Resolve' does not take Hungering Cold from the top of the Frost tree, seeing as how this ability eats up a good chunk of RP, is more likely useful for AoE tanking, and will probably be useless when fighting bosses that are immune to freezing effects (almost all of them). Instead, the last two points of this build are put into Unholy Command for the improved taunt, which is oh-so-crucial for effective MTs...
• 6 - 14/52/5 - Rcon's 'Death Rune Extreme'
• 7 - 12/51/8 - Animation's frost tanking - With current beta itemization and leveling, 2h weapons are your best be for effective tanking due to the lower hit rating cap and on higher %dmg dealing spells. Focuses on causing Death Runes which allow you to change your approach at any given time, even allowing up to 4 Death Strikes for burst healing. Life Tap for soloing and last minute saves. Lichborne and Unbreakable armor provide additional DPS and survival. Blade barrier offers a secondary (almost passive) avoidance stat, while Bladed Armor gives you more STR from the Armor you will be stacking naturally. Last but not least, Hungering Cold followed by a Death Chill / Howling Blast for burst AoE threat when needed most.
• 8 - 0/60/10 - PVP DPS Frost Spec
• 9 - 13/53/5 - Healing Frost Tank - A frost death knight build that provides tanking capabilities and can heal self with rune tap.
• 10 - 3/60/8 - Frost in Blood Presence for PvP - Major Glyphs: Icebound Fortitude, Glyph of Unbreakable Armor, Icy Touch, Blood Strike Maintain max distance from the opponent and use: Icy Touch >> Howling Blast >> Death Coil Enter melee combat and use: Plague Strike >> Blood Strike x 2 >> Obliterate x 2 Finish with Hungering Cold + Obliterate/Howling Blast or Unholy Presence and Frost Strike x 6.
• 11 - 5/56/10 - Frost Tank Build - Nice DK frost tank build with ep. The rotation as Frost with Epidemic is Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strikex2, Obliterate x4.
• 12 - 5/66/0 - Pure Frost Tank Build
• 13 - 11/53/7 - 2H Frost Tank Build - This build in my opinion is very forgiving if you mess up or casting rotation or have stun or silence get you. I have tanked with it as main tank and was able to keep good threat and damage up for long drawn out fights with end bosses.
• 14 - 21/50/0 - Frost PvP Healing build
• 15 - 20/51/0 - DK FROST BLOOD BUILD - PvE solo-ing and group tanking build. It gives you a VERY high armour raiting, (almost doubles), and amazingly high frost attack power and crit.
• 16 - 27/44/0 - A Frost spec made to Obliterate!A clearly PvE spec with Obliterate gaining an amazing 24%(+3%to all melee skills) critical just talent while it doesn't remove deceases, while incrises passively 8% Str and gain (for u and raid) 10% Attack Power every time u use Obliterate. Frost Strike which combines great with Obliterate since it doesn't need any runes and u just use one Icy Touch every 20 seconds just to gain(for u and raid) 20% melee haste then Blood Strike to make Blood rune Death Runes and then Obliterate and Frost Strike FTW!!!
• 17 - 0/51/20 - Hungering ShadowHeavy Tanking Ability, w/ some Solo or PVP functionality.
• 18 - 11/50/10 - Frost Tank buildIt's mainly a frost build with rune tap and epidemic for a last minute save and less reaplication of diseases. Morbidity for more use of Death and Decay the highest threat abilities that death knights have. All else should be self explained. Rotation would be IT>PS>BS>BS>OBL>FS or IT>PS>DnD>Pes for a group of targets.

Unholy Builds 20 Builds currently listed

• 1 - 3/14/54 - Unholy Frost
• 2 - 0/14/57 - Pure unholy PvP DPS, Diseases, AoE And summoning - Toughness in frost tree is for increased armor and stun effects (Frost Aura + Toughness is imba in Arena with a healer since the DK can shit out loads dps with Frost Aura on instead of Blood for example) Decreased Death Grip CD which makes it hard for people to run away once the fight begins. Kiting possible with chains of ice and talent desecration, scourge strike main attack ofc with obliterate, use plague strike, icy touch and unholy blight, but always keep plague strike up because it increases the damage from abilities and spell they receive by 10%. Imba spec for arena, outdoor pvp and bg's especially AV (death and decay aoe, corpse explosion, unholy blight..) some people want to exchange annihilation for wandering plague if the focus more on AV pvping since it's imba vs many targets
• 3 - 25/5/41 - Huogo's Unholy Rampage - Blood provides survivability in both tanking and pvp and unholy adds to the overall damaging ability with 5 points for inc armor, to my knowledge tanking as this would require some presence swapping between frost for aggro and blood to heal self; feedback on this spec from beta players would be much appreciated.
• 4 - 7/0/64 - Jaime's No Escape AoE tanking build - A DK AOE tanking build. End game stat building will focus more around being able to dodge and parry incoming attacks, rather than absorbing damage (Be aware of the lack of Toughness). Talents like Desecration will assist the tank in keeping crowd control over his victims as he mercilessly forces them to spread diseases between each other; they are your rats and you are the cage. There shouldn't be an excuse when it comes to Runic Power; spend your bar on Unholy Blight. The Morbidity talent early on is specifically for the Death and Decay cooldown reduction since you won't be using Death Coil. Go, Death Knight, and show them what it means to suffer!
• 5 - 0/20/51 - DW Unholy Build
• 6 - 17/13/41 - Mortician's Unholy Critter - Scourge Strike, but it goes into the blood and frost trees to get their critical strike bonuses and damage bonus. Well rounded tank/dps/pvp.
• 7 - 16/0/55 - Zephire's Deep Unholy DPS build - Maximizes Scourge, Death Strike, Ghouls and also uses Rune Tap for healing.
• 8 - 10/8/53 - Golgofa's DW dps Build - Unholy PVE dps build
• 9 - 7/11/53 - Unholy Summoning Tank
• 10 - 23/0/48 - Unholy Blood Damage/Healing Spec - A spell/2h damage dealing spec with some heals from blood to keep you going.
• 11 - 16/0/55 - Bart's Unholy Death Knight Build - Less healing than the above spec but should be a good damage spec.
• 12 - 18/0/53 - Unholy Avenger - Build to steal health and has gain heavy returns on runic power, as well as making minions and plagues.
• 13 - 15/5/51 - Unholy Palindrome - Attempts to maximize runic generation, DPS and DOT while utilizing the Ghoul benefits.
• 14 - 19/0/52 - PvP Unholy DK build - PVP spec/race based on the disadvantages that DKs have. Kiteable being one. Very deep in the unholy tree. Unholy is the best for this, while doing great burst dmg. Get unholy aura and stay in blood presence. mix that with escape artist, trinket, and set a macro up for your ghoul to leap and gnaw, got the talents that lower CD on ghoul summoning since they can be rather weak, they're purpose is purely stop your opponent in their tracks. Glyphs: Ice Bound fort, Anti Magic shell, and Death and Decay for the fear interrupthis down, and chains of ice your target leaving them helpless especially casters since you should have your AMS up. DPS wise, can you still dps with this spec if you want in heroics/25's with this spec 25man vault I'm pushing 2600+ dps, 286 hit, 30% to crit. Rotation: PS-IT-BS-BS-SS-DC-SS-SS-SS and DC till RP is gone, repeat process.
• 15 - 12/0/59 - Mr Snuggle's raid DPS build - WOW Death Knight DPS build that's great for raids with emphasis and maximization on multi-mob damage. High damage DK build.
• 16 - 10/10/51 - Darkfury's pure DPS build - This build maximizes your DPS. It uses the AP talent from blood for higher hits. Along with the Black Ice and Imp Icy Touch. While still maximizing the output from your diseases and from your ghoul. Careful not to pull aggro with this build or you could suffer.
• 17 - 17/0/54 - Death Knight Unholy DPS Raid Build - This is a Raid build that is used by many Death Knights on my server. This outputs, in my gear, hight end blues, and a couple heroic epics, about 2000 dps self buffed easily. Fully raid buffed, in Heroic Naxxramas, I was able to push 3500 DPS. It scales very well with strength and attack power buffs. And, as Unholy, with Wandering Plague, you are able to maintain high DPS on trash pulls.
• 18 - 7/5/59 - Unholy Destruction - This build is not intended with questing, or dps in mind this build is a AoE multi target tanking. Focus all your attention on dodge/parry (pure avoidance), stack strength/agility and gem accordingly and you should never lose threat.
• 19 - 17/0/54 - Unholy Raid DPS DK - This build is for DPS and a little raid support. Rotations: IT -> PS -> SS -> BS -> BS -> Dc -> SS -> SS-> BS -> BS->Dc -> IT -> PS -> Recycle
• 20 - 0/5/66 - Raid Tank - This is my current build as Lejend. I am a MT for my raid group. Took Magic Shielding as a raid tool as well as Unholy aura for raid movement. This spec as worked out so far as we are doing 25man Saratharion and Naxx on the regular.

Hybrid Builds 6 Builds currently listed

• 1 - 30/25/16 - Blood-Stealing Criticals - This spec is a great BG or Arena PvP Spec. Used with a 2h Weapon, Subversion, Dark Conviction, Annihilation, and Killing Machine greatly improve your melee and spell criticals. Butchery, Rune Tap, Runic Power Mastery, and Vendetta will regenerate your health and Runes for greater survivability, and Mark of Blood will heal any allies assisting you or yourself. Spell Deflection, Toughness, and Anticipation will allow you to survive longer against all classes. Shadow of Death is thrown in for Arena, AB, and AV so you can better defend bases and teammates. The rest of the talents are there to passively increase your damage total. As stated before, you should use a 2H weapon with this spec. Your main stat should be crit rating, followed by strength, resilience, attack power, stamina, and intellect in that order. This spec may also be viable for DPSing in instances where the enemy needs to be finished off quickly, yet hits hard. The spec will heal you and your group while dealing high amounts of burst melee damage. Resilience is not needed for instances.
• 2 - 20/14/37 - Hybrid Blood/Frost/Unholy Tank - Very tough but need a good healer.
• 3 - 39/14/18 - PVP/Small Raid Build - Build has very little points spent on white DPS talents most of the DK's damage is from abilities. Points in Frost are for to power DK's amor and the lower duration of slowing effects. This builds Rotation: PS-IT-BS-OB-DC
• 4 - 28/36/7 - Pure Physical Mitigation Build
• 5 - 34/18/19 - PVE DPS by WitheredSoul - A little information about this build: firstly, it is strictly for dual wield deathknights and more for races like orcs and humans with the extra weapon expertise from racials. The points are spent for pure dps in a pve environment. You still give blood aura and abomination's might as a group buff, but icy talons is only for yourself. While leveling, dump the blood points in quick then focus on frost and then unholy at the end. Itemization should be based primarily on hit/expertise and strength to take advantage of Veteran of the Third War and Ravenous Dead, with crit and armor penetration being secondary stats to look for. Standard rotation would be IT-PS-BS-BS-OB
• 6 - 26/40/5 - Hybrid Tank - defense and stacked stam/parry. This build is has a lot of healing and mitigation.